Bard envisions the liberal arts institution as the hub of a network, rather than a single, self-contained campus. Numerous institutes for special study are available on and off campus, connecting Bard students to the greater community.

The Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College embodies the fundamental belief that education and civil society are inextricably linked. In an age of information overload, it is more important than ever that citizens be educated and trained to think critically and be actively engaged with issues affecting public life.

Poetry: Omar Berrada and Sarah Riggs CANCELED

Thursday, November 1, 20125:30 pm

Due to storm-related difficulties, this reading has been canceled. We are currently working on rescheduling the event.

The John Ashbery Poetry Series Presents Omar BerradaandSarah Riggs reading from their work, including bilingual translations from the Arabic and French.

Sarah Riggs is the author of Autobiography of Envelopes (Burning Deck, 2012), 60 Textos (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010), Waterwork (Chax Press, 2007), and Chain of Minuscule Decisions in the Form of a Feeling (Reality Street Editions, 2007). Currently she is at work on a series of film poems, “Hudson,” “Brest,” “Brooklyn” and “Skye.”Her book of essays, Word Sightings: Poetry and Visual Media in Stevens, Bishop, and O’Hara, was published by Routledge in 2002. She has translated or co-translated from the French the poets Isabelle Garron, Marie Borel, Etel Adnan, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and, most recently, Oscarine Bosquet. A member of the bilingual poetry collective Double Change, and founder of the interart non-profit Tamaas, she lives in Paris, where she is a professor at NYU-in-France.

Prophecy: The Written Testimony

Friday, November 2, 201212:30–1:30 pm

St. John the EvangelistThe Institute of Advanced Theology (IAT) will be sponsoring its Fall Advent Luncheon Lecture Series, "Prophecy: the written testimony" beginning on Friday October 5 and will continue on each Friday in October and November 2nd.

Prophets claim to link the world of human beings with divine reality. Their methods have included recourse topoetry, vision, music, and ritual. Prophecy ahs typically been seen as an undocumented activity, either too remote in time or too marginal to be fully recorded. Yet the Hebrew Bible provides direct evidence - reaching back to the eighth century B.C.E. - of what the prophetic process and prophetic communication involve.

We will meet at St. John the Evangelist in Barrytown, NY. At noon lunch will be available for IAT members at a charge of $10.00 and non-members $13.00. Reservations for lunch are necessary by calling 845-758-7279 or e-mail iat@bard.edu.Sponsored by: Institute of Advanced Theology.

Sacred Harp Singing

Sunday, November 4, 201212–2:30 pm

Bard Hall, Bard College CampusShapenote music is a fiery form of four-part harmony a-cappella singing. Originating in 18th century New England and continuing right up to the present day in the rural South, shapenote singing is a living breathing tradition of American folk hymnody.

We sing out of a tune book called The Sacred Harp, one of the last books of this tradition still in common use.

We are a community of singing open to all! You don't need to know how to sing or read music to come. No prior experience is necessary: all will be taught. You just need to be ready to make some noise.

There is a weekly beginner's tutorial from Noon to 12.30 followed by a two-hour singing. Songbooks are provided.

Faculty Recital and Lecture—Program Updated

Jeremy Denk in Concert - Olin Hall

Sunday, November 4, 20123 pm

Olin HallDue to travel difficulties associated with Hurricane Sandy, Jeffrey Kahane will be unable to join us for this event to perform the scheduled "Secret Listener" program. Acclaimed pianist and Bard Conservatory faculty member Jeremy Denk will appear in his stead.

Program:

Johannes Brahms Six Pieces op. 118

Franz Liszt Petrarch Sonnet no. 123

Franz Liszt Sonata after Dante—Franz Liszt/Richard Wagner "Liebestod"

Robert Schumann Davidsbündlertänze op. 6

This concert will be a preview of the program Mr. Denk will be playing on Noevember 7, 2012 at Wigmore Hall, London.

Evensong Service

Sunday, November 4, 20127–7:45 pm

Chapel of the Holy InnocentsEvensong: Ancient Ritual Blessing of Light (lucinarium) from the second century a.d. Join us for music, a multitude of candles---a celebration of light.Sponsored by: Chaplaincy.

Samuel R. Delany Reads from His Work

Monday, November 5, 20122:30–4 pm

Campus Center, Weis CinemaThe Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading Series presents a free public reading by Samuel R. Delany. A giant of the New Wave science-fiction movement, Delany is the winner of Nebula, Hugo, and Stonewall Book Awards, and the author of numerous novels, including Dhalgren, Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection, and most recently, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. Introduced by Bradford Morrow, the reading will be followed by a Q&A. No tickets are required.For more information, call 845-758-7054, or e-mail mmorriss@bard.edu.

Panel Discussion: Bridging the Gap between the Classroom and the Field

Everyday Aspects of Anthropological Research in the Middle East and North Africa, with Dave Crawford and J. Zerrin Holle

Monday, November 5, 20125:30 pm

Olin, Room 102Dave Crawford is Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology and Anthropology at Fairfield University in Connecticut. His anthropological fieldwork has focused on Berber speakers in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, particularly regarding issues of globalization, the transition to wage labor, gender and household dynamics, and social inequality. He won the Julian Steward Award for his first book, Moroccan Households in the World Economy, and he has a coedited volume coming out this spring, Encountering Morocco: Fieldwork and Cultural Experience.

J. Zerrin Holle is a student in the Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies Departments at Bard. Her ongoing fieldwork involves working with Kurdish communities that are internally displaced throughout Turkey, specifically in Istanbul. Her research focuses on issues of forced migration and resettlement.

Designing Magical Moments with Digital Media

Tuesday, November 6, 20125:30 pm

Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium

A lecture byMasa InakageDean and ProfessorKeio University Graduate School of Media Design

We are thrilled and emotionally moved by compelling content such as film, game, and live performance. This talk aims to share the experiences to design magical moments of fun and engagement, drawn from various digital media projects. Find out how Keio University Graduate School of Media Design conducts projects from screen media to tangible media.

Masa Inakage is Dean and Professor at Keio University Graduate School of Media Design. He is an artist/designer, creative director, and producer, as well as strategist and is one of Japan's leading authorities on emerging technologies and digital entertainment. His artworks and animation works have been shown internationally at galleries and festivals, including Museum of Modern Art in NYC and Ars Elextronica Center in Linz, Austria.

New Classics for Flute

Wednesday, November 7, 20128 pm

Olin Hall

Patricia Spencer, flute

(including 5 pieces written for her)

With

Linda Hall, piano

Frederick Hammond, harpsichord

Working with today's composers -- those who live and breathe the essence of today's music -- is a constant, scary, exciting challenge. This program features five pieces written for Patricia Spencer, two pieces by Bard College/Conservatory faculty, and Couperin (not written for Patricia Spencer).

Kevin Carrico: Reimagining the Real China

Neo-traditionalist Movements in Contemporary Urban China

Thursday, November 8, 20124:30 pm

RKC 103

What, when, and where is the real China? According to a growing group of young people in cities across the country, the real China is not to be found in the reality of the present. Instead of skyscrapers, mega-events, new fashion, and globalization, the groups discussed in this talk envision courtyard homes, ancient rituals, organic foods, traditional robes, and sociocultural homogeneity as embodying the proper essence of China, an eternal land of rites and etiquette (liyi zhi bang). Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted with members of the Han Clothing Movement and rapidly growing Confucian and traditionalist educational associations, this talk examines the rise of social movements dedicated to a fundamentally conservative vision of China within a rapidly urbanizing, globalizing, and increasingly complex society. What are these movements’ main ideals, objectives, and practices? Why have they emerged at this moment? Who joins these movements, and what benefits do they derive from their involvement? Yet most importantly, is their “real China” of the past any more real than the present? And what are the repercussions of these tensions between reality and imagining, or between actuality and ideals, in the national experience in general?

Backward Wives or Agents of Revolution? CANCELED (to be rescheduled)

Jews and Gender in Interwar Soviet Life

Thursday, November 8, 20124:45 pm

Olin, Room 201

Elissa BemporadQueens College, CUNY

By focusing on the ways in which one specific group of Jews negotiated between Communism and Jewish identity, Dr. Bemporad will discuss Jewish women’s distinctive path to Sovietization in the interwar period. A wide range of visions of both the Bolshevik experiment and Jewish women’s path to Sovietization influenced the gender discourse on the Jewish street and affected the shifting roles that women came to play in the political, cultural and social life of the Soviet system. Female empowerment, which would have been a natural outgrowth of the Soviets’ commitment to gender equality, eventually met and collided with male empowerment, as Jewish men began to view the “new Soviet Jewish woman” as a dangerous threat to their status, perhaps even more than their non-Jewish counterparts.

Elissa Bemporad holds the Jerry and William Ungar Assistant Professorship in Eastern European Jewish History and the Holocaust at Queens College, City University of New York. She was trained at the University of Bologna and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She received a PhD in history from Stanford University and is most recently the author of Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk (forthcoming with Indiana University Press), which received the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History awarded by the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide for an outstanding work of 20th century history.

From the Insides Out: A critical look at stereoscopic 3D gore

Thursday, November 8, 20126–7 pm

Avery Art Center, Center for Film, Electronic Arts and MusicSlate columnist Daniel Engber discusses depictions of impalings, beheadings, and other violations in 3-D cinema. A critical look at stereoscopic gore, from the tawdry slasher films of the 1980s to today.Sponsored by: Film and Electronic Arts Program.

Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble

Quartet Concerts

Friday, November 9, 20128 pm

Composer/performer Meredith Monk has been deemed “a magician of the voice” and “one of America’s coolest composers,” amazing audiences across the globe for more than 45 years with her genre-spanning compositions. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which we have no words. Monk and her acclaimed Vocal Ensemble—some of the finest and most adventurous performers active in new music—will showcase Monk’s range as a composer and her engagement with performance as a vehicle for spiritual transformation.

The program for Quartet Concert I on Friday, November 9, includes multiple soloselections from Juice,Songs from the Hill, andLight Songs;selections fromFacing North; Music for Voice and Piano: Gotham Lullaby, Travelling,and last song; Music for Voice, Keyboard, and Woodwinds: Choosing Companions, fromATLAS: an opera in three parts; Waltz in 5’s,from The Politics of Quiet; Scared Song and clusters 3, from Songs of Ascension; Panda Chant I and Memory Song, from The Games; masks, from mercy;and between song, fromimpermanence. The majority of these selections can be heard on the ECM New Series label.

New Albion Records was founded in San Francisco in 1984 to explore the world of art music. Its current catalogue includes 138 releases. In recent years, with the onset of the Internet, its focus has moved from recording projects to concert events. This is New Albion’s fifth such event with the Fisher Center.

Running time for this program is approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

Family Concert

All Ages Welcome at Matinee Chamber Music Performance

Saturday, November 10, 20124 pm

Bard ChapelThe Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle and the Preparatory Division of The Bard College Conservatory of Music present a Family Concert. Admission is free of charge; all donations support the Bard Conservatory Preparatory Division scholarship fund. For more information call 845-339-7907

Featuring Conservatory Preparatory students and their teachers in a performance to capture the hearts of babes in arms, toddlers, teenagers, and classical music devotees, the one-hour program includes vocals, four-hand piano, and strings. Young people will be invited to sit up front, close to the musicians. Everyone in the audience will be invited to meet the performers and see their instruments.

Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble

Quartet Concerts

Saturday, November 10, 20128 pm

Composer/performer Meredith Monk has been deemed “a magician of the voice” and “one of America’s coolest composers,” amazing audiences across the globe for more than 45 years with her genre-spanning compositions. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which we have no words. Monk and her acclaimed Vocal Ensemble—some of the finest and most adventurous performers active in new music—will showcase Monk’s range as a composer and her engagement with performance as a vehicle for spiritual transformation.

The program for Quartet Concert II on Saturday, November 10, includes Music for Unaccompanied Voice,with selections fromJuice, Songs from the Hill, and Light Songs; Music for Voice and Piano: Gotham Lullaby, Travelling, and Madwoman’s Vision; and Music for Voice, Keyboard, and Woodwinds: Choosing Companions, fromATLAS: an opera in three parts; Hips Dance, fromVolcano Songs:Duets; Prayer II, fromThe Politics Of Quiet;Scared Song, epilogue, and woman at the door, frommercy; clusters 3, fromSongs of Ascension; Panda Chant I and Memory Song, from The Games; masks, from mercy; and between song, from impermanence. The majority of these selections can be heard on the ECM New Series label.

New Albion Records was founded in San Francisco in 1984 to explore the world of art music. Its current catalogue includes 138 releases. In recent years, with the onset of the Internet, its focus has moved from recording projects to concert events. This is New Albion’s fifth such event with the Fisher Center.

Running time for this program is approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

Sacred Harp Singing

Sunday, November 11, 201212–2:30 pm

Bard Hall, Bard College CampusShapenote music is a fiery form of four-part harmony a-cappella singing. Originating in 18th century New England and continuing right up to the present day in the rural South, shapenote singing is a living breathing tradition of American folk hymnody.

We sing out of a tune book called The Sacred Harp, one of the last books of this tradition still in common use.

We are a community of singing open to all! You don't need to know how to sing or read music to come. No prior experience is necessary: all will be taught. You just need to be ready to make some noise.

There is a weekly beginner's tutorial from Noon to 12.30 followed by a two-hour singing. Songbooks are provided.

Evensong Service

Sunday, November 11, 20127–7:45 pm

Chapel of the Holy InnocentsEvensong: Ancient Ritual Blessing of Light (lucinarium) from the second century a.d. Join us for music, a multitude of candles---a celebration of light.Sponsored by: Chaplaincy.

The Day of Dance at the Hessel Museum of Art is a collaboration between the artist Liam Gillick, the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and the Dance Program at Bard College. The idea for the event was sparked by Liam Gillick’s Everyday Holidays project, which proposed a calendar of new holidays to be celebrated throughout the duration of his ongoing exhibition, From 199A to199B: Liam Gillick.

Speakers Series : Andrea Kroksnes

Monday, November 12, 20124–6 pm

CCS Bard, Seminar Room 1In this talk Andrea Kroksnes will present some of her latest curatorial and research projects. From this personal point of departure she sets out to problematize the larger context of curatorial work. She will take up issues such as the curatorial work structure in European museums compared to independent curatorial work for biennials. Kroksnes will discuss with the students models of curatorial autonomy against models of shared responsibility in collaborations and networks. The training and focus of her curatorial work has been museum based and even traditional at times but she also has been invested in keeping alive a tradition of curatorial and institutional self-reflection that was initiated by the artists and curators of Institutional Critique - a big influence for Kroksnes. For her, working as a curator means very consciously maintaining a mixture of analysis and critical practice. On the whole, artistic and curatorial practices automatically oscillate between the r ole of the user of an already existing visual culture and the role of an active producer of critically revised conceptions of this culture. The project to establish a new mode of interdisciplinary and collaborative research into visuality is a crucial focus of her curatorial work. The analysis of present-day visual culture as a specific cultural, social, political and aesthetic phenomenon urgently raises the question of the legitimacy of traditional institutions and notions of art.

About The Speakers Series: Each semester the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College hosts a regular program of lectures by the foremost artists, curators, art historians, and critics of our day, situating the school and museum's concerns within the larger context of contemporary art production and discourse. Lectures are open to students and faculty, as well as to the general public, and will also be documented through video and/or audio recordings, which will reside in the CCS Bard Library and Archives.Sponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

Gabriele Pedulla

Monday, November 12, 20125 pm

Campus Center, Weis Cinema

Movies and Spectators After the Cinema

GABRIELE PEDULLÀ is Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of Rome III. He published a book on the partisan writer Beppe Fenoglio (2001) and a monograph on Machiavelli’s theory of conflict (2011). For his first book of fiction, the prize-winning collection of short stories Spanish Made Simple (Lo spagnolo senza sforzo, 2009), he was selected as one of the ten best Italian writers under forty by the literary supplement of "Il Sole 24 Ore"

Plasma screens, portable players, computers, videophones, handhelds: moving images are no longer designed for just one technical support, nor do they impose on spectators a single viewing style. If for the entire 20th century people attended films following a precise ritual inherited from the live theatre, silent and sedate in the darkness of the auditorium, today this tie between movies and movie theatres seems less crucial every day. Moving images are everywhere and seem to follow us in our daily lives, at home as in public places or transit. How do films change to adapt to this new situation? And, above all, how has the experience of those who watch changed? Facing one of the decisive transformations in the history of Western aesthetics, from the Renaissance until today, Gabriele Pedullà attempts to investigate films in the age of individual media to reason about the metamorphosis of a spectator increasingly free but also increasingly loath to let himself be truly moved by the images flashing before him. A revolution of the gaze that is remodeling the entire system of the arts and is destined to profoundly shape contemporary creativity in all its manifestations. A story that began five hundred years ago, in Palladio’s Italy, or perhaps even earlier, in the Athens of the great tragedians, is coming to a definitive close. The only way to avoid passive subjugation to the epochal metamorphosis of aesthetic experience as such is to completely understand it.

The Future of Sustainable Business: A Conversation with Andrew Winston

Monday, November 12, 20126:30–8:30 pm

Join Bard MBA in Sustainability as we host a conversation with sustainable business expert and author Andrew Winston. Andrew Winston is a globally recognized expert on green business, appearing regularly in major media such as The Wall Street Journal, Time, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, and CNBC. Winston, founder of Winston Eco-Strategies, is the author of Green Recovery, a strategic plan for using environmental thinking to survive hard economic times and prepare your company for growth when the downturn ends. He is also the co-author of Green to Gold, the best-selling guide for companies going green. Winston is dedicated to helping companies both large and small use environmental strategy to grow, create enduring value, and build stronger relationships with stakeholders. His clients have included Bank of America, Bayer, HP, Pepsi, Boeing, and IKEA.

Bard MBA Director Eban Goodstein will engage Andrew in an evening of conversation on the future of sustainable business. Following the conversation, there will be a discussion period open to questions from the audience.

6:30 PM: Doors open with small bites and refreshments7 PM: Sustainable Business Series: A Conversation with Andrew Winston

Theater Festival: Five Senior Projects in Directing

Tuesday, November 13, 2012 – Sunday, November 18, 2012

Fisher Center, Resnick Theater StudioTuesday, November 13 at 7 and 9 pmWednesday, November 14 at 7 and 9 pmThursday, November 15 at 7 and 9 pmFriday, November 16 at 5, 7, and 9 pmSaturday, November 17 at 5, 7, and 9 pmSunday, November 18 at 5, 7, and 9 pm

Free admission—reservations via the Box Office

Five senior directing students in the Theater and Performance Program will present work as part of their Senior Projects in a festival taking place fromTuesday, November 13 to Sunday, November 18. These pieces—either short plays or edited versions of longer plays—will be presented in a rotating repertory, with two or three pieces performed each evening.

The Belly of the Whale (edited) by Fabio Rubiano OrjuelaDirected by Marta McKeownPerformances: Tuesday, November 13 at 9 pmThursday, November 15 at 7 pmSaturday, November 17 at 7 pm

The Glass Menagerie (scenes one, two, three, and four) by Tennessee WilliamsDirected by Sarah LoucksPerformances: Wednesday, November 14 at 7 pmFriday, November 16 at 7 pmSunday, November 18 at 9 pm

Gruesome Playground Injuries (edited) by Rajiv JosephDirected by Sarah PoorPerformances: Thursday, November 15 at 9 pmSaturday, November 17 at 5 pmSunday, November 18 at 7 pm

The Real Thing (edited) by Tom StoppardDirected by Benjamin WszalekPerformances: Tuesday, November 13 at 7 pmFriday, November 16 at 9 pmSunday, November 18 at 5 pm

Savage/Love by Sam Shepard and Joseph ChaikinDirected by Moriah Van CleefPerformances:Wednesday, November 14 at 9 pmFriday, November 16 at 5 pmSaturday, November 17 at 9 pm

The Philosophy Program presents

Tuesday, November 13, 20124:45 pm

Olin, Room 201

Alessandra Brusadin PhD candidate in Philosophy, University of Padova Italy, and current Bard Research Scholar in Residence "Understanding Music in its Context: Wittgenstein's Criticism of a 'Science of Aesthetics'"
Is it possible for aesthetics to be a science? Can empirical methods provide an explanation for our aesthetic judgments? The possibility of a 'science of aesthetics' is one of the focuses of Wittgenstein's Lectures on Aesthetics (1938). In this talk,I will discuss aspects of our understanding of music in light of Wittgenstein's non-psychologistic view of aesthetics. Specifically, I will address the connection between our psychological or neural processes and the context of our experience of music.

The Anti-Political Prejudices of Modernity: A Civic Humanist Critique

A Lecture by Michael McCarthy

Tuesday, November 13, 20127–9 pm

Olin, Room 102 " No other human ability has suffered to such an extent from the progress of the modern age as the capacity for action, the capacity to begin something new".

Hannah Arendt, Crises of the Republic

Hannah Arendt was neither a liberal nor a Marxist. In fact, her critique of the Western political tradition spares neither ancients nor moderns, neither classical philosophers and theologians nor modern economists and social theorists. Arendt was rather a civic humanist, a reflective adherent of the civic republican and revolutionary traditions. My reflections, undertaken in her memory, revolve around two closely related questions. Why was Arendt so critical of the political heritage of the modern age? Why was the political promise of modernity never fulfilled? The unifying theme connecting Arendt's answers to these questions is the world alienation of modernity. McCarthy's lecture will explore one principal source of that alienation and clarify the political alternative Arendt offered in response: knowledge and love of the world.

This Is Your Brain on Technology

Wednesday, November 14, 20126 pm

Olin 202

How do technologies inform our understanding of what it means to be human? Are our current ethical dilemmas about the definition of life unprecedented? Do androids dream of electric sheep? Join Maria Cecire, Greg Moynahan, and Barbara Luka for an orientation session on secondary concentrations at Bard that examine technology, cognition, and the human experience from philosophical, cultural, and historical perspectives.

Faculty Seminar: Sanjib Baruah

Fall 2012

Wednesday, November 14, 20127 pm

Olin, Room 102

Sanjib Baruah

Global Environmentalism and the Mega Hydropower Projects of the Eastern Himalayas

Some of the largest construction projects in history are currently under way on the rivers of the Eastern Himalayas.A few years ago it seemed as if mega dams had become a thing of the past. There was an emerging global consensus regarding the adverse ecological impact of large dams.But in this century dams – and those designed for hydropower production in particular -- have acquired a new lease of life for a number of reasons: (a) the relentless growth in the demand for energy in China and India, (b) the growing pressure on these countries to reduce carbon emissions that has made hydropower more attractive, and (c) the liberalization and globalization of capital and financial markets which brought about new ways of financing hydropower projects, making the campaigns of the 1990s by environmentalists that had focused on the financing of dams by institutions such as the World Bank irrelevant. The hydropower projects of the Eastern Himalayas will surely destroy the health of some of the world’s most powerful rivers and their ecosystems.My current work focuses on the dams being built on the Indian side, and on one set of social effects in particular: the enclosure of the water commons,which I argue, will have a devastating impact on the livelihoods of millions.That these developments are to a significant extent the unintended effect of climate change having moved up on the global policy agenda, which has made hydropower more acceptable, is a challenge to the global environmental movement.

This seminar will be held in Olin 102 beginning at 7:00 p.m. Join us for a reception in the Olin atrium beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Global Change on the Emerald Planet

Thursday, November 15, 201212 pm

Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium

A lecture byAdam WolfPostdoctoral FellowPrinceton University

Earth is different from other planets - it has life. While Carl Sagan mused about the Big Blue Marble, more and more we come to understand that the strange history and ambiguous future of the planet hinges on its living green skin - ours is the Emerald Planet. The last 40 years has come a long way in helping understand the role of the biosphere on global processes, based on our understanding of individual leaves, but there remains deep uncertainties on ecological processes in the middle scale, from trees to food webs to ecosystems, to landscapes and beyond. This is the scale at which organismal fitness is realized and evolution unfolds, where there is a major role of ecology and evolutionary biology to play to understand how fortunes may be won or lost as global changes shift the balance between species. And on the Emerald Planet, as species change, so too do the functions and services provided by the ecosystems they constitute. Nevertheless, there remain significant obstacles to improving our understanding at this scale, not least because models of global change fail to understand ecosystems in a truly biological way, in part because it is a challenge to observe the phenomena we wish to understand. In my talk, I will describe a broad set of models, theories and observations I and colleagues have developed to monitor, understand, and predict the manifestations of global change at the ecosystem level.

Fun and (Sudoku) Games with Algebra

Thursday, November 15, 20124:40 pm

RKC 111

A lecture byCourtney GibbonsUniversity of Nebraska, Lincoln

If you love math and games, you've probably done a few Sudoku puzzles in your day. Have you noticed that all Sudoku puzzles have some properties in common (the sum of every row is 45, for instance)? We'll see how to formalize these observations by using polynomials to set up the Sudoku "game space." Then we'll figure out how to solve specific "game boards" in this space using some tools from (abstract) algebra.

Don't worry; even if you haven't taken any abstract algebra, you'll be able to follow this talk (all you really need is a background in Calculus II).

Radioactivism

Screening and Discussion on Responses to Japan's Nuclear Crisis

Thursday, November 15, 20126:15–8 pm

Olin 102

The tsunami of March 11th 2011 not only devastated Northeastern Japan but instigated an ongoing nuclear crisis, in which the fear of radiation has penetrated the air, ground, food, and water of the entire country. Growing doubt towards the nuclear power industry and governmental regulatory structures has unleashed a new wave of citizen activism and popular protest on a scale unseen in Japan for decades. Yuko Tonohira and Ayumi Hirai of the group Todos Somos Japon will discuss recent developments in the anti-nuclear movement and screen a selection of short documentary films on responses to the crisis.

Todos Somos Japon is a network-building project aiming to connect and support activists in Japan and world-wide. TSJ publishes and translates critical writings in Japanese and English at http://jfissures.org and organizes events and film screenings in the New York area and beyond.

EUS Film Series: Urbanized

Thursday, November 15, 20129 pm

PrestonEUS Film Series is a bi-weekly screening of documentary films that are related to subjects explored by the Environmental and Urban Studies program at Bard. Join us every other Thursday this fall to watch the films and discuss EUS topics with your peers and professors. Spread the word!

This week's film is Urbanized, which features our very own Noah B. Chasin (Art History, Environmental & Urban Studies, Human Rights) as well as Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, and Michael Sorkin! Join us as these famous architects (and we) discuss the policy, design, and human rights issues surrounding urban planning.Sponsored by: Environmental and Urban Studies Program.

Buddhism and Food Culture in Korea

Friday, November 16, 20121:30–2:30 pm

Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 AuditoriumSeonjae Sunim Renown South Korean Buddhist nun, scholar, and master chef Seonjae Sunim comes to Bard College to share her philosophy of dietary and spiritual well-being. Considered an icon in Korean temple cuisine, Seonjae will share her experience as an advocate of a return to locally-informed traditional Korean food culture and environmentally-conscious cooking. She may even share a recipe for kimch’i made of vegetables grown in the Hudson Valley.Sponsored by: Anthropology Program; Asian Studies Program; Bard Center for Environmental Policy; Environmental and Urban Studies Program; Political Studies Program; Religion Program.

Bard Conservatory Preparatory Division Open House

Saturday, November 17, 201210 am – 2 pm

Avery Art Center, Center for Film, Electronic Arts and MusicProspective students are welcome to drop in through out the day and get information about the Preparatory Division. Arrangements for auditing a class and meeting the faculty by appointment only.Sponsored by: Bard Conservatory Preparatory Division.

Saturday, November 17, 201211 am – 2 pm

Useful Links: Download Campus Map and Directions to Bard CollegeNOTE: A shuttle will be provided to and from Rhinecliff's Amtrak Station which is 15 minutes from Bard College. Pick up in Rhinecliff at 10:15am and Pick up at Bard at 2:15pm.

John Cage: On & Off the Air!

Saturday, November 17, 20128 pm

Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater

Tickets: $15, 25, 35, 45

John Cage’s interest in radio as both a medium of transmission and a musical instrument was lifelong, beginning in childhood with original broadcasts created on behalf of his Boy Scouts of America troop and culminating, the year before his death, with his Europera 5 (1991), one of three mixed-media works created for the operatic stage. John Cage: On & Off the Air! celebrates this engagement with an ever-changing program of works wrapped around a newly staged revival of Cage’s peripatetic The City Wears a Slouch Hat (CBS Radio, 1942). Based on a play by Kenneth Patchen, it features a newly commissioned film oflight and shadows by the New York composer Mikel Rouse and performed by the celebrated Canadian-based percussion ensemble NEXUS. The film for The City Wears a SlouchHat will incorporate the use of shadows to simulate characters of a live performance. In this way, the “shadow film” will mirror the live action appearing on stage, as well as becoming a “portable set.”

John Cage: On & Off the Air! celebrates Cage’s centennial year under the auspices of the John Cage Trust. Its theme spotlights Cage’s ever-prescient work with technology; its design extends Cage’s devotion to multiplicity, creativity, and responsive living.

Sacred Harp Singing

Sunday, November 18, 201212–2:30 pm

Bard Hall, Bard College CampusShapenote music is a fiery form of four-part harmony a-cappella singing. Originating in 18th century New England and continuing right up to the present day in the rural South, shapenote singing is a living breathing tradition of American folk hymnody.

We sing out of a tune book called The Sacred Harp, one of the last books of this tradition still in common use.

We are a community of singing open to all! You don't need to know how to sing or read music to come. No prior experience is necessary: all will be taught. You just need to be ready to make some noise.

There is a weekly beginner's tutorial from Noon to 12.30 followed by a two-hour singing. Songbooks are provided.

Evensong Service

Sunday, November 18, 20127–7:45 pm

Chapel of the Holy InnocentsEvensong: Ancient Ritual Blessing of Light (lucinarium) from the second century a.d. Join us for music, a multitude of candles---a celebration of light.Sponsored by: Chaplaincy.

Bard Conservatory Students Family Concert

A Rhinebeck Chamber Music Series

Sunday, November 18, 20124–5 pm

Church of the Messiah, Rhinebeck, NYMonstrare, a brand new brass quintet of advanced musicians from the Bard College Conservatory of Music, will present a family concert to introduce the brass family of instruments. This musical journey will take us from Gabrieli's 16th-century Baroque fanfares to 20th-century works by the American trumpet player, composer, and conductor Anthony Plog (composer of the opera "How the Trumpet Got Its Toot").

Monstrare (which means to show) includes musicians from Hungary, Canada, Czech Republic, and the United States who will demonstrate and explain the extraordinary capabilities of tuba, trumpets, trombone, and horn.

Speakers Series: Roger Berkowitz

Monday, November 19, 20123–5 pm

CCS Bard, Seminar Room 1Globalization and the Human Condition

In a global world boundaries collapse. There is a question whether any borders or limitations are valid. For many, all boundaries (whether moral or political) are unjust impositions of hierarchal orders. Occupy Wall Street and Human rights share more than a desire to actualize freedom in the world. They are also, in significant ways, non-political and even anti-political institutions. As political instances of the radical democratic theorizing of Jacques Ranciere, both OWS and the global human rights movement reject the institutionalization of politics in favor of unlimited openness. This paper argues that politics requires institutions, for politics without a space of politics secured by institutions is impossible.

Roger Berkowitz is an interdisciplinary scholar, teacher, and writer. He writes on politics, law, Hannah Arendt, Greek and German philosophy, and legal history. His essays have appeared in Bookforum, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Theory & Event, The Fortnightly Review, The Journal of Politics, Philosophy and Literature, the Journal of Law, Culture and Humanities, New Nietzsche Studies, and many other publications. His monograph, The Gift of Science: Leibniz and the Modern Legal Tradition, was recently published by Harvard University Press. He is co-editor of Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics and The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis. He teaches at Bard College where he is Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities.

About The Speakers Series: Each semester the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College hosts a regular program of lectures by the foremost artists, curators, art historians, and critics of our day, situating the school and museum's concerns within the larger context of contemporary art production and discourse. Lectures are open to students and faculty, as well as to the general public, and will also be documented through video and/or audio recordings, which will reside in the CCS Bard Library and Archives.Sponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

Secure Two-Party Computation Sublinear (Amortized) Time

Tuesday, November 20, 20125 pm

RKC 100

A lecture byMarina Raykova, Class of 2006

Traditional approaches to generic secure computation begin by representing the function ⨍ being computed as a circuit. If ⨍ depends on each of its input bits, this implies a protocol with complexity at least linear in the input size. In fact, linear running time is inherent for non-trivial functions since each party must “touch” every bit of their input lest information about the other party's input be leaked. This seems to rule out many applications of secure computation (e.g., database search) in scenarios where inputs are huge. Adapting and extending an idea of Ostrovsky and Shoup, we present an approach to secure two-party computation that yields protocols running in sublinear time, in an amortized sense, for functions that can be computed in sublinear time on a random-access machine (RAM). Moreover, each party is required to maintain state that is only (essentially) linear in its own input size. Our protocol applies generic secure two-party computation on top of oblivious RAM (ORAM). We present an optimized version of our protocol using Yao's garbled-circuit approach and a recent ORAM construction of Shi et al.We describe an implementation of this protocol, and evaluate its performance for the task of obliviously searching a database with over 1 million entries.Because of the cost of our basic steps, our solution is slower than Yao on small inputs. However, our implementation outperforms Yao already on DB sizes of 218 entries (a quite small DB by today's standards).

Sacred Harp Singing

Sunday, November 25, 201212–2:30 pm

Bard Hall, Bard College CampusShapenote music is a fiery form of four-part harmony a-cappella singing. Originating in 18th century New England and continuing right up to the present day in the rural South, shapenote singing is a living breathing tradition of American folk hymnody.

We sing out of a tune book called The Sacred Harp, one of the last books of this tradition still in common use.

We are a community of singing open to all! You don't need to know how to sing or read music to come. No prior experience is necessary: all will be taught. You just need to be ready to make some noise.

There is a weekly beginner's tutorial from Noon to 12.30 followed by a two-hour singing. Songbooks are provided.

Evensong Service

Sunday, November 25, 20127–7:45 pm

Chapel of the Holy InnocentsEvensong: Ancient Ritual Blessing of Light (lucinarium) from the second century a.d. Join us for music, a multitude of candles---a celebration of light.Sponsored by: Chaplaincy.

CCS Bard Speakers Series : Gregg Bordowitz

Monday, November 26, 20123–5 pm

CCS Bard, Seminar Room 1Testing Some Beliefs

This presentation will consider the continuing relevance of poetry to visual art. Using the artist's own current writing and video work, we will consider the possibilities (and difficulties) of making art about AIDS at this historical juncture.

Gregg Bordowitz is an artist and writer. For the past three years, Bordowitz turned his attention to performance. Testing Some Beliefs is an improvisational lecture that he delivered at Iceberg Projects (Chicago), Murray Guy (New York), Temple Gallery (Philadelphia), and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Texas). He wrote and directed Sex Mitigating Death: On Discourse and Drives: A Meditative Poem, presented March 18th, 2011, at the Tate Modern, London. He also directed and wrote an opera titled The History of Sexuality Volume One By Michel Foucault: An Opera, which premiered October 1 and 2, 2010 at Tanzquartier Wien, Austria. His most recent book, “General Idea: Imagevirus,” was published by Afterall Books in 2010. A collection of his writings — titled “The AIDS Crisis Is Ridiculous and Other Writings 1986-2003” — was published by MIT Press in the fall of 2004. For this book, Bordowitz received the 2006 Frank Jewitt Mather Award from the College Art Association. In addition, he has received a Rockefeller Intercultural Arts Fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, among other grants and awards. His films, including “Fast Trip Long Drop” (1993), “A Cloud In Trousers” (1995), “The Suicide” (1996), and “Habit” (2001) have been widely shown in festivals, museums, movie theaters, and broadcast internationally. Professor Bordowitz teaches in the Film, Video, New Media, and Animation Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and he is on the faculty of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

About The Speakers Series: Each semester the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College hosts a regular program of lectures by the foremost artists, curators, art historians, and critics of our day, situating the school and museum's concerns within the larger context of contemporary art production and discourse. Lectures are open to students and faculty, as well as to the general public, and will also be documented through video and/or audio recordings, which will reside in the CCS Bard Library and Archives.Sponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

Monday, November 26, 20124:45–6:15 pm

Divine and Popular Sovereignty in Islamic Political Thought after the Arab Spring

Monday, November 26, 20125–6:30 pm

Olin 102

Andrew March Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University

Since the 2011 revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, political life in those countries has been dominated by so-called "moderate Islamist" parties. These parties proclaim the acceptance of constitutional democracy and political power-sharing, while at the same time endorsing shari'a law as the ultimate source of legitimate power in a Muslim country. This talk approaches the paradox of Islamic democracy through the lens of the concept of sovereignty in contemporary Islamic political theology. What does it mean to hold that both God and the people can be said to be "sovereign" and what unresolved paradoxes remain at the level of theory?

Visting Artist Recital: Friedrich Gauwerky CANCELED

Monday, November 26, 20128 pm

Hello Hi There

By Annie Dorsen

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Fisher Center, LUMA Theater

Tuesday, November 27 at 6 and 8 pmTickets: $20; $5 Bard communityDiscussion after the 6 pm performance with Annie Dorsen and Maria Sachiko Cecire, coordinator of the Bard Experimental Humanities Program and assistant professor of literature Hello Hi There uses the famous television debate between the philosopher Michel Foucault and linguist/activist Noam Chomsky from the seventies as inspiration and material for a dialogue between two custom-designed chatbots. Every conversation between the chatbots forges a unique path due to their custom-made software, which has been programmed to mimic the nuances of human conversation. The result is an unexpected, uncanny, and humorous meditation on what separates humans from machines.

Obie Award–winning director and writer Annie Dorsen works in theater, film, dance, and digital performance. Her most recent work, Hello Hi There, premiered at the Steirischer Herbst festival (Graz), and was presented at Black Box Teater (Oslo), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), and PS122 (New York), among others. She is cocreator and director of the 2008 Broadway musical Passing Strange. In 2009, she created two music theater pieces: Ask Your Mama, a setting of Langston Hughes’s 1962 poem, composed by Laura Karpman and sung by Jessye Norman and The Roots (Carnegie Hall), and ETHEL’s TruckStop, seen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. In 2010, she collaborated with choreographer Anne Juren on Magical and with Juren and DD Dorvillier on Pièce Sans Paroles. In addition to numerous awards for Passing Strange, Dorsen has received several fellowships, notably the Sir John Gielgud Fellowship from the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. She has taught at New York University, Fordham University, and Playwright’s Horizons, and is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. Sponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies; Live Arts Bard .

GSS Advising Session

Tuesday, November 27, 20124:30–5:30 pm

Kline - Faculty Dining RoomStudents interested in Spring course offerings in Gender and Sexuality Studies, or who are interested in the GSS concentration, are cordially invited to an open advising session.

Representatives from GSS Faculty will be present to offer advising and answer any questions you may have.

Turning a Single Molecule into an Electric Motor

Tuesday, November 27, 20125 pm

Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium

A lecture byCharlie SykesTufts University

In stark contrast to nature, current manmade devices, with the exception of liquid crystals, make no use of nanoscale molecular motion. In order for molecules to be used as components in molecular machines, methods are required to couple individual molecules to external energy sources and to selectively excite motion in a given direction. Significant progress has been made in the construction of molecular motors powered by light and by chemical reactions, but electrically-driven motors have not been demonstrated yet, despite a number of theoretical proposals for such motors. Studying the rotation of molecules bound to surfaces offers the advantage that a single layer can be assembled, monitored and manipulated using the tools of surface science. Thioether molecules constitute a simple, robust system with which to study molecular rotation as a function of temperature, electron energy, applied fields, and proximity of neighboring molecules. A butyl methyl sulphide (BuSMe) molecule adsorbed on a copper surface can be operated as a single-molecule electric motor. Electrons from a scanning tunneling microscope are used to drive directional motion of the BuSMe molecule in a two terminal setup. Moreover, the temperature and electron flux can be adjusted to allow each rotational event to be monitored at the molecular-scale in real time. The direction and rate of the rotation are related to the chiralities of the molecule and the tip of the microscope (which serves as the electrode), which illustrates the importance of the symmetry of the metal contacts in atomic-scale electrical devices.

Tuesday, November 27, 20126:45 pm

Mahmoud Darwish: The Poetics of Return

Sinan Antoon (NYU)

Tuesday, November 27, 20127 pm

Olin 102

Many of the late poems of Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) grapple with the theme of a/the “return” to Palestine. Considering Darwish’s iconic status and his immense symbolic and political capital and the visceral importance of “return” as a political category, it becomes more than a theme. In his talk Antoon will attempt to trace this narrative of return in representative poems and read its political implications.

Sinan Antoon is Associate Professor at NYU's Gallatin School. He is also a poet, novelist and translator. He has published two collections of poetry in Arabic and one collection in English: "The Baghdad Blues" (Harbor Mountain Press, 2007). He has published three novels: "I`jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody" (City Lights, 2007), "The Pomegranate Alone" (2010) forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2013, and "Ya Maryam" (Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2012). His translations from the Arabic include Mahmoud Darwish’s "In the Presence of Absence" (Archipelago, 2011) and a selection of Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef’s late work, "Nostalgia; My Enemy" (Graywolf, 2012). His translation of Toni Morrison’s Home is forthcoming in Arabic in 2013. He is a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Arab Studies Journal and co-founder and co-editor of the cultural page of Jadaliyya. Antoon returned to his native Baghdad in 2003 as a member of InCounter Productions to co-direct a documentary, About Baghdad, about the lives of Iraqis in a post-Saddam-occupied Iraq.

A Bard Ancient Studies Symposium Event

Tuesday, November 27, 20127 pm

Bard College artist-in-residence Jean Wagner has recently written and directed a stage adaptation of the novel Kassandra by the East German writer Christa Wolf. Wagner, together with actors involved in the project, will present scenes from the performance (both live and on video) and will discuss this ambitious and complex adaptation of a work that is itself a radical re-imagining of the story—recounted by Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Virgil, and others—of the Trojan princess who is

The Bard College Orchestra Fall Concert

Wednesday, November 28, 20128 pm

Fisher Center, Sosnoff TheaterUnder the direction of Geoffrey McDonald, the Bard College Orchestra performs works by Rossini, Elgar, Beethoven and Haydn. This concert is free and open to the public.Sponsored by: Music Program.

"Pascal's Vacuum and the Culture of the Cosmos"

The John Ashbery Poetry Series Presents Jena Osman

Thursday, November 29, 20125:30 pm

Campus Center, Weis CinemaJena Osman reads from her work.

This event is open to the public and free of charge.

Jena Osman’s books of poems include Public Figures (Wesleyan University Press, 2012); The Network (Fence Books 2010, selected for the National Poetry Series in 2009); An Essay in Asterisks (Roof Books, 2004); and The Character (Beacon Press, winner of the 1998 Barnard New Women Poets Prize). Osman was a 2006 Pew Fellow in the Arts, and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Howard Foundation, and Fund for Poetry. She has been a writing fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, Djerassi Foundation, and Chateau de la Napoule. She founded and edited the magazine Chain with Juliana Spahr for twelve years; Osman and Spahr now edit the ChainLinks Book series together. Osman teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Temple University.

Friday, November 30, 201211 am – 8 pm

Contemporaneous presents "Shut Your Eyes"

Friday, November 30, 20126:30–8:15 pm

Chapel of the Holy InnocentsContemporaneous presents "Shut Your Eyes"

Friday, November 30, 2012 at 6:30 pmChapel of the Holy Innocents, Bard CollegeFree and open to the public

Shut Your Eyes is an evening of powerful music that will send you sprawling along an emotional and kaleidoscopic voyage — a night of heightened senses brought about by the most visceral music of the present moment. Shut your eyes and Contemporaneous will provide the view.

A founding member of Contemporaneous, Boulder-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Conor Brown’s music draws from Turkish and Balkan folk as well as American minimalism, to create a highly original and compelling musical voice of driving polyrhythms and concentric structures. His large-scale, multi-movement world premiere work Scrolls on this program is a wild, haunting, rock-infused, Anatolian folk-inspired work for four vocalists and ensemble that he wrote specifically for us.

Best known for his work as a guitarist with the indie-rock band The National, Bryce Dessner regularly writes for and plays on the new music scene as well. His recent work O Shut Your Eyes Against the Wind is a dreamscape of morphing textures and beautiful sonorities that takes its title and inspiration from an evocative poem by Black Mountain poet Larry Eigner.

Inspired by the rich sean-nós vocal tradition of his native Ireland, Donnacha Dennehy’s Grá agus Bás (trans: Love and Death) is a dramatic and intense epic for vocalist and just-intoned chamber ensemble. As the music navigates an emotional palate ranging from timeless bliss to devastating terror, Contemporaneous vocalist Finnegan Shanahan will be the beacon on this uniquely powerful journey of ecstasy and destiny that makes an unforgettable impact.